Government Data Proves Raw Milk Safe

Thanks to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease control, we finally have the numbers we need to determine the statistical safety of drinking raw milk. Turns out, raw milk really is safer than just about any other food out there — including spinach, peanut butter, and eggs. The risk of contracting an illness from contaminated raw milk is ridiculously small, particularly when you consider the amount of resources the federal government is pouring into undercover investigations of raw milk farmers, raids of buying clubs and co-ops, and creating an anti raw milk campaign.

For years, we’ve known exactly how many people in the U.S. get sick from drinking raw milk (an average of 42 per year). What’s been missing is the baseline — the number of raw milk drinkers in the U.S. In 2007, the CDC conducted a survey to determine the number of raw milk drinkers. And would you believe it? It took them until just a few months ago to make the data public! Running the numbers, it’s not hard to see why…

“At last we have access to the numbers we need to determine the risk of consuming raw milk on a per-person basis,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation that provides information on the health benefits of raw, whole milk from pastured cows.

The key figure that permits a calculation of raw milk illnesses on a per-person basis comes from a 2007 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) FoodNet survey, which found that 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk, or about 9.4 million people, based on the 2010 census. This number may in fact be larger in 2011 as raw milk is growing in popularity. For example, sales of raw milk increased 25 percent in California in 2010, while sales of pasteurized milk declined 3 percent.

In addition, Dr. Beals has compiled published reports of illness attributed to raw milk from 1999 to 2010. During the eleven-year period, illnesses attributed to raw milk averaged 42 per year.

“Using government figures for foodborne illness for the entire population, Dr. Beals has shown that you are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,” says Fallon Morell. “And with good management practices in small grass-based dairies offering fresh unprocessed whole milk for direct human consumption, we may be able to reduce the risk even further.”

“It is irresponsible for senior national government officials to oppose raw milk, claiming that it is inherently hazardous,” says Dr. Beals. “There is no justification for opposing the sale of raw milk or warning against its inclusion in the diets of children and adults.”

According to Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, “Where raw milk is concerned, the FDA has an agenda apart from protecting the public health. The agency wants to restrict and discourage the sale of unprocessed dairy products. This will have the effect of denying freedom of choice.”

“Every time there is a possible connection between illness and raw milk, government officials issue dire press releases and call for bans on raw milk sales,” says Fallon Morell. “However, these numbers fail to justify the government opposition and prove what we’ve known all along, that raw milk is a safe and healthy food.”

So, there you have it! Raw milk is SAFE, and we know how to make it even SAFER. Put cows out to pasture. Let them eat rapidly growing green grasses. Keep milking facilities well-cleaned and sanitized. Use modern refrigeration and stainless steel holding tanks. Keep milk cold while transporting it. If you choose to drink raw milk, only drink this “good stuff.” Don’t drink raw milk that’s been intended for pasteurization (this usually comes from confinement dairies, and isn’t particularly healthful or clean.) It’s so simple, really!

About the Author

Kristen Michaelis CNC has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2008. Founder and CEO of Food Renegade, she's a passionate advocate for REAL FOOD -- food that's sustainable, organic, local, and traditionally-prepared according to the wisdom of our ancestors. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude) from Dallas Baptist University in Philosophy and Biblical Studies, then began her post-graduate journey as a researcher in the fields of health and nutrition. While she adores hats & happy skirts, nothing inspires her quite like geeking out over nutrition & sustainable agriculture. Nutrition educator & author of the go-to book on nutrition for fertility, she's also a rebel with a cause who enjoys playing in the rain, a good bottle of Caol Isla scotch, curling up with a page-turning book, sunbathing on her hammock, and parenting her three children as they grow into young adults.

Scarlet Fever is caused by Group A Streptococcus bacteria (the same bacteria that causes Strep Throat), which CAN be transmitted through foods like raw milk, eggs, ice cream, chicken, etc. but it is more likely to be transmitted through inhalation or touch (close contact). In order for the food to be contaminated, someone who is infected must come in contact with the food. So it is possible for a person to become infected with Scarlet Fever from consuming Raw Milk products, but it is more likely that an individual would become infected at school, their workplace, etc. from an infected individual.

I saw this and found it quite compelling. But for some reason, people are still convinced there must be something terribly dangerous about drinking fresh milk. I happen to think there’s something terribly dangerous about consuming the majority of foods sold at my local grocery store. 🙂

April, I was just discussing the fact that we have in this country a thing called a “health food store.” It’s a shame that a person can’t walk into just any grocery store and come out with healthy food.
It’s amazing how much retail space is dedicated to imitation food.

This is so timely! Listen up world! The government just disproved themselves. Now, if only we could get them to pay attention to common sense and actual health of the people instead of big business dollars… “thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk”

It’s baffling to me that so much energy is put into keeping people from accessing raw milk when other riskier foods are given the green light. Imagine the good that energy could do if it were put in the right direction. In the mean time, every time I pick up my milk I feel like I’m negotiating an undercover drug deal.

Are you speaking about the CDC survey data about the number of raw milk drinkers or the info on the raw milk illnesses? If the analysis of the rate of illnesses, etc., it will be published in the upcoming issue of Wise Traditions, and will probably be compiled online shortly after that.

If they really want to do some research, they ought to follow 2 groups of kids/adults, one drinking raw milk and one drinking the toxic garbage Big Ag calls “milk”. Let’s evaluate each group’s health, how many times they go to the doctor/get sick, health of teeth, etc. THAT would be the true test of which “milk” is really safe!

I’m assuming you all know the risks of consuming raw milk during pregnancy. One of the saddest funerals of my life was a infant miscarried at 6 months with a Listeria infection directly transmitted through raw milk.

Actually, raw milk is probably the safest thing a woman can consume during pregnancy. People, seek out raw milk drinkers and listen to their testimonials, no tooth decay, never been to a doctor, great health, so many diseases healed. You do not absorb the minerals with pasteurized, the real world evidence shows this. I highly doubt this listeria story is true, but even if it’s one of the 42, balance that against the millions with health benefits, lives saved…

We have our own milking goats and love the freedom of being able to enjoy fresh raw,naturally homogenized milk from these animals. We can only hope that our government will see eye to eye on the truth of the safety in digesting raw milk from cows and goats.

It is really sad that they had to put so much effort into determining if it is safe or not – I mean 42 people get sick a year? That’s pathetic. Too bad they didn’t have a study that showed how many people get sick from the stuff they call milk in the supermarket.

So good to hear it verified! I never got sick drinking raw milk and spooning raw cream onto my carrots.

However, I and my son got a weird rash of pimples after drinking raw goats milk from a friend. When I looked into it I reached the conclusion that her hygiene wasn’t excellent and that the goats may have been staph carriers, as our rash looked awfully staphyloccocal. This bears out the fact that raw dairies need to be scrupulous about hygiene – as we were in the old days before all those nasty antimicrobal sprays!

Yes, I do like it (my milk) raw! We (our fam) also like as much local Alaska grown food we can eat, grow, share. We also shop @ Safeway, Fred Meyer, Costco, and try to make the best choices. having that choice is most important.

I am sorry for those who have had poor — or even tragic — experiences with raw milk. However, I find the anecdotal anti-raw-milk comments irrelevant. What we raw-milk proponents are NOT saying is that there is ZERO risk — there are 42 cases yearly of poisoning from contaminated raw milk — we’re saying that the risk is INFINITESIMAL compared to other food-borne illnesses. It’s sad that a few can have a terrible experience with something and the bad word spreads like wildfire. But what these numbers are saying is that, in spite of the few reports of illness from raw milk, the RISK is extremely low.

Unfortunately the govt has been slandering raw milk for a long long time. The pharmaceutical cartel makes billions off a sickly, demineralized population. Raw milk would heal so many. I doubt the “tragic” stories here are genuine. Out in the real world I only hear good things about it. It IS accurate to say there’s no risk, because it reduces the risk of serious illness and miscarriage, ie drinking it is safer than not drinking it.

Specious logic. The risk is extremely low because the number of people who produce/use it is relatively low and because people a) don’t always go to the doctor for food poisoning and b) sorry but not every doctor is the Perry Mason of doctors. Unless you are grievously ill, your doctor is not taking a food history and combing your kitchen for samples to test.
Back when mostly no one had cars, no doubt there was crowing about how much safer cars are than horses. Don’t you love your kids? Why, look at how many people get thrown by a horse or trampled or kicked every year, compared to only five people last year that died in a car!

Now the tables have turned and riding a horse is much safer than riding a car. But that is not summarily because of an actual difference in risk. It’s because the number of cars used for daily transport vastly outnumbers horses being used thusly.
If you are honest you know that ’47 people got sick’ between x and y is not a truthful number. Just like the numbers for how many got sick off of ‘regular food’ is inaccurate. Just like the data on how many people got raped last year is not real. More people get sick or sexually assaulted than report it. If you don’t know that, well, now you do.
I have never seen a doctor for acute food-borne illness. Only twice have I really been in a bad way. Once was twenty years ago when I spent the night by the toilet with pillow and blanket because it was easier than running in there every twenty minutes. At one point i actually thought I might die. Hard to quantify, but I thought well, I might be on the way out. Passed out but still alive the next day…I was maybe fourteen.But the only other time anything remotely like that happened was in the past few months…after drinking raw milk. Is it sheer coincidence? Yeah, maybe. But I’ve been fine for twenty plus years, had raw milk before, and the first time I buy from a different source I wind up pitching camp in the loo? I think not. Logic tells me I am not one of 47, I’m one of many who didn’t go to a doctor.

Honestly, to say you hold the anecdotal experience of anyone who didn’t have a FAB experience ‘irrelevant’ is terrible. If you are willing to use anecdotal experience telling people how wonderful something can be, its dishonest to say only anecdotes which support you are allowed to be real. Saying simply because x hasn’t happened to you, it could not possibly be relevant or factual is just scary. Anecdotally castor oil soothes my joint aches but if someone says it didn’t help them, I’m not assuming they’re in the pay of GSK and lying for thirty pieces of silver. Likewise, if Kelly says our mutual acquaintance Wally raped her, the fact that I have yet to be personally assaulted by Wally is not proof that Kelly lied.
You go to some trouble to point out that well, you’re not saying there’s NO risk, it’s just the risk is so small that it’s fine. But not everyone who has a bad experience is ‘anti raw milk’ and people who are against it are not necessarily against it no matter what programs that could be put in place to comfort them.
I’m not ‘anti raw milk’. I still use it. I recommend others look into it. I think it should be legal in all fifty states and legal to sell off-site. I’d love to not have to drive an hour and fifteen minutes each way when I want some. But it CAN be dangerous like any food and the risk is only small because it is a small potatoes industry so far. No ones died from ‘vaping’ yet that I know of but I think we all know…’anecdotally’…that’s because it’s a minority share of the smoking market and someday they’ll figure out e-cigs are risky too.
It can be dangerous partially because it’s such an underground, rinky-dink industry. I agree people should ‘know their farmer’. But even if you have dinner and your kids play with his kids, does that make you or him an expert on germ theory? Does it give you microscopes for eyes, mutant powers of perception? Maybe some proponents will tell you raw can do that for you too. You know, anecdotally.
What middle-ground people are in favor of is having raw milk be legal but not the way it is now. If it weren’t so counterculture to farm this way, maybe dairymen could get loans with less hassle to invest in their farm. Perhaps there could be a program HE wouldn’t have to pay for to test more parts of more batches more often, and have more time for one-on-one training and supervision. If consumers can be soothed by ‘(insert your state)tested it, it’s fine, here’s a label on the side about caring for it, how long you should keep it, etc, then more people will try and be sold.
‘ people, raw milk is fine if it’s clean and the cow is healthy and x and y and z’. That is true. I’m totally behind that. People deserve to be able to trust though that that is the case without personally swabbing the tank and the udders. Clearly people deserve that from Big Food and don’t receive it all the time either. But it doesn’t win to use the ol’ well-he-did-worse-yesterday-so-what-are-you-yelling-at-me-for chestnut.
‘Trust but verify’ as Reagan said, which is one of maybe three useful things he said. The farm I went to missed the boat on at least one batch. If we nag legislators into devoting more $to food that doesn’t involve taking $ from lobbyists, they could test more products of ALL kinds ( as in not just raw) and provide more monitoring of whether animals are being treated kindly and healthfully so as to prevent situations to start with.

Unfortunately, the only illnesses that are counted tend to be those that cause digestive symptoms. There is no solid data on things like allergies and autoimmune problems caused by pasteurized milk, caused by the immune system’s reaction to the dead bacterial protein that is left in the milk from heating. I have celiac disease and thought that it was good enough to drink homemade kefir made from the best local, organic, grass-fed, but lightly pasteurized milk I could find. It gave me significant sinus congestion and digestive symptoms. After switching to raw milk? The kefir not only causes no sinus congestion, it clear my sinuses if they are congested from something else. And my tummy is calm and happy. My hubby says he will never go back to drinking pasteurized.

Do you have a link to the CDC study? I would love to share all this wonderful information about raw milk (we’ve been drinking it for years!) but all I’m finding at the CDC website is a bunch of negativity:

The risk IS low..until you contract a deadly pathogen from raw milk…as my five year old daughter did and who is now on her 12th day in the hospital with e.coli/HUS. She is receiving dialysis bc her kidneys are shut down. Now its personal and being one of those 42 per year is catastrophic for our family and we are fearful of raw milk. We are in Knoxville, TN.

We have a right to buy raw milk and juice in stores. There are a lot more deadly things in the stores like Tylenol and alcohol. If the government keeps going we won’t be able to buy fresh produce or meat anymore because of the “risks.” It’s crazy. Why don’t they just label it as risky and let us make the decision.

The laws against it make no sense to me. Yes, there might be certain people who should be careful. But there are people who are allergic to peanuts, and they aren’t illegal. There are people who should not eat raw foods because they are getting chemo, and those foods aren’t illegal. Why are all of us banned from getting something because a small group of people might not tolerate it well? Why can’t that small group be warned and the rest of us be free to eat/drink what we want?

So the real question here is, how many people per year are getting sick from PASTEURIZED milk? And how do the percentages compare? I’d stake money on raw being safer, because of opportunistic contamination in processing facilities AFTER Pasteurization, in which case the milk has no natural defense left, and the nasties just run rampant.

WE cannot get raw milk here in Northern Ireland. I have manages to find one supplier that has non-homogenised milk but it is still pasteurized. I only drink enough for one cup of coffee a day so not too concerned.

Er, so why do I get food poisoning EVERY time I have anything other than cheese that is made with raw milk (no matter the source)? I tried to use raw milk for about a year, and tried many different sources! Obviously there are some bacteria in it that can make us sick. We are so so lucky to live in a world that has pasteurization for foods like milk. I am so grateful.

homogenization has absolutely nothing to do with health, for starters. It is done purely for aesthetics. And pasturization only became necessary when cows were brought into cities, where they didn’t have enough space and were conditions were highly unsanitary (this isn’t an issue anymore, but now CAFO’s are). Milk raised the right way, on pasture, and handled correctly is perfectly safe to drink raw.

So much rhetoric here… seems like I’ve heard it all somewhere before. Unless you’ve experienced the grave illness of your own small child and watched them fight to live… because YOU spent $7.50 a gallon (for the raw milk you were led to believe – by the same language repeated here – was perfectly safe for your family) and proudly filled their little sippy cup with that creamy milk… you really cannot speak with any authority. You can spout numbers, sure. But let it be your toddler or your first grader … (Am I making some of you a little uneasy and unsure if you should put that milk on the table tomorrow morning? I hope so.) You’d never let it cross your doorstep again, and you know it. Tom Colgate – you accused me of fabricating my story because I used a phrase you’d heard spoken before. (I said I was forever changed.) So now it’s my turn to point out a term you raw milk folks like to use. You like to say that we are “slandering” raw milk. Well, to quote my favorite line from the Princess Bride (ha!) … “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Google says the definition of slander, as a verb, is to “make false and damaging statements about (someone)”… So you see, one cannot slander an inanimate object. Regardless, I’m sure you must have been paid by the raw milk movement to say that because my local raw milk advocates said the same thing.
42 is TOO many, people!!! We’re not talking your run-of-the-mill food poisoning here. We’re talking life-threatening illness complete with organ failure. Go read my post on Food Safety News if you’d like to know how contaminated raw milk affected my family (unless, like Tom, you really believe government agents snuck in and sabotaged our milk jars… then I guess our story would be irrelevant to you).

I was considering buying some raw milk and I was researching to see of the risks outweigh the benefits. I’m not sure when this article was originally written but the CDC states that FAR more than 42 per year. According to the CDC there were 2384 illnesses between 1998 and 2011. This averages to about 183 illnesses per year. http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html#risks

Raw milk isn’t safe every time. Sometimes the bacterial counts are low, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the raw milk contains pathogens, sometimes you’re lucky and they don’t. There is no step which prevents infection unless you heat it. No washing step which can remove the contamination. There is nothing you can do to ensure you are drinking milk which is ok not milk which is dangerous.

Raw milk is dense with nutrition, enzymes, vitamins, minerals. It’s an excellent food, and actually is a superfood, unlike some of the other foods that claim to be “superfoods”. The problem is, nobody should be telling anybody what they can or can’t eat.

You are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,” says Fallon Morell. “And with good management practices in small grass-based dairies offering fresh unprocessed whole milk for direct human consumption, we may be able to reduce the risk even further.Every time there is a possible connection between illness and raw milk, government officials issue dire press releases and call for bans on raw milk sales.

I am reading the CDC report for studies analyzed from 2007-2012 where they found that over that 5 year period there were 979 illnesses caused by raw milk which equals 196 per year, not 42, and that is just from the 26 states which cooperated with provided reports, not 50 states. Myself, I am not frightened of drinking milk which has simply been boiled. I cook milk all the time. Cocoa. Warm milk at bedtime. Nothing to be scared of. And enough nutrients are still there, especially since I eat a whole lot more things all day than just milk. Let’s not go overboard. It’s not like the milk is being treated with chemicals. It’s just cooked. Like meat. I don’t eat raw meat either. You can, if you want. I guess what you are saying is that you want the freedom to die from raw milk if you choose to. But I think about innocent children who get sick and die because they have parents who prefer unsafe bacteria to a little bit of heat.

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